Baby #2 is on the way!

Frohe Weihnachten from Germany!!
Three years ago on Christmas Day we were able to surprise our family with the news that we had Baby Keenan on the way. This Christmas Day, we were able to surprise our family with the news that Brayden is going to be a BIG BROTHER! Baby Keenan #2 is due to arrive around August 3, 2012.
We are so excited! It's kind of funny how much more relaxed we are this time. We really have no preference on whether it's a girl or a boy because we both wanted a boy and got him the first time around.
This morning we were able to Skype with my mom and some of Jeff's family to let them know the big news. I made a "Big Brother" shirt and we put it on Brayden to see if the family would try to read it. I think my favorite reactions were from my Mom who said "Well, it's about time!" and from Jeff's Grandma Thelma who said "Are you trying to tell us something?".
Brayden had a busy day playing with all of his new toys. He got a lot of trains and tracks to add to his Thomas the Train collection. He also got lots of movies to keep him entertained for awhile.
Hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!

Finally a new post...

Ugh, I've been a crappy blogger recently. Probably has to do with the fact that my computer was in the States getting repaired, but it's back and the hard drive is still intact (thank goodness!).
We've been pretty busy over here in the past month or so. I have started a new job as a part-time Speech-Language Pathologist at the Intermediate School here which is 3rd-5th grade. It's going well so far and Brayden has adjusted well to going to the babysitter. At least he doesn't cry when I drop him off anymore! Brayden has been working on potty training which is an ongoing battle. He will get it before the New Year! :)
Jeff has been busy as can be with work! He finished up another online class towards his MBA and got another "A"! Between work and homework, he doesn't have too much free time.
We've done some traveling to the Christmas Markets around Germany. They have vendors, lots of great food and Glühwein, which is basically wine served warm. Every town's Glühwein has a different taste, but it is so good! We made it to the markets in Bernkastel-Kues, Trier and here in Kaiserslautern. Hopefully we'll have some time to make it to the big one in Nürnberg next year.
We had our first big snowfall this morning and Brayden LOVED it. We built a snowman, went sledding and he had a snowball fight with his friend, Aiden. When we were all done playing outside, we drank some hot chocolate which Brayden kept referring to as his "coffee".

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween! Yee Haw! :)

Brayden as Woody Halloween 2011

Ciao Italia!

Well, I finally got to go to Italy! I've always wanted to go and it was hard to pass up a cheap 2 hour flight to get there! Since Jeff had a long weekend for Columbus Day, I decided that we had to take our first big trip. We have friends from Ft. Gordon that are now stationed in Naples and figured that it'd be a great opportunity to see them.

We flew into Rome on Friday morning and had all day to sightsee there. The public

transportation system is great in Rome because you can basically get anywhere by train or bus. We bought an all-day train pass for 4 Euro and each bus trip was about 1 Euro a piece, so it was

very affordable compared to what a taxi would cost. We waited for a bus at the air

port that took us to a train station. After a train trip to our hotel, we realized that

at the hotel was still another 1.7 miles from the train station. We took a cab the rest of the way. :) We stayed at a Marriott outside of the city. It was an amazing hotel and I highly recommend it! They had a round-trip shuttle service that dropped us off

near the Vatican for only 10 Euro a piece (Brayden was free). The food was great in the hotel and we even got access to the Executive Suite where we could get snacks and drinks since Jeff has

racked up the Marriott points in the past couple of years.

That afternoon we took the shuttle and saw St. Peter's Basilica, St. Peter's Square, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon and many other beautiful churches. Brayden decided to fall asleep on the shuttle and stayed asleep until we got to St. Peter's Square. We had dinner at Caffe Barocco which was inside of Piazza Navona. The food was great and our server was wonderful! He was so sweet to Brayden and really made that restaurant a great experience. We sat outside so we got to watch the people go by and also listen to people play guitars and accordions. I really felt like I

was in Italy at that point! I was so happy that I was able to get some great pictures of Brayden chasing pigeons in St. Peter's Square. When we left there, Jeff and I looked at each other and said..."Ok, we could go home now". That was definitely the highlight of the trip! We ended the day in Rome with some gelato which was delicious of course! :)

The next morning, we hopped on a 2 hour train ride to Naples to see our friends Tom and Ashley. On the way to their house from the train station we soon realized that Italians don't have driving laws...or if they do, they don't follow them! Their rules basically consist of 1) Don't make eye contact with the other driver that you approach the intersection with because that would be giving him the right of way 2) If the nose of your car is in front first, you have right of way 3) Stop signs are really just a suggestion, not a rule 4) Lane lines mean nothing and you're better off just driving down the middle of the road. It was quite entertaining actually! We had a pretty

low-key day on Saturday which was much needed! We went to lunch at a place by their house and had some great bruschetta and pasta. Cappuccino/caffe was a common thing

for us in the middle of the afternoon in Italy as well. That evening we went to a local pizzeria and the atmosphere was great. The Neapolitan pizza was amazing and the man making the pizzas,

Vincenzo, had Brayden come behind the counter and watch. Of course on the way home, we stopped for gelato! The next day we went to breakfast at the Premiere Cafe and had cornetti and cappuccinos. Cornetti are basically a pastries that they fill with creme or jelly...sooo good. Mine had chocolate inside and was drizzled with cocoa powder. Later, we went to Ercolano to the Herculaneum to see the ruins there. Mt. Vesuvius was a beautiful site in the distance as well. It was quite amazing to see some of the paintings that still existed on the walls of some of the buildings.

After we toured there, we went to a pizzeria up the street and had paninis for lunch. The older woman behind the counter brought out some freshly squeezed orange juice for Brayden. I was completely impressed with how everyone treats kids in Italy...they love them! That afternoon we drank some great Italian wine and headed to dinner for more pizza and pasta. If you couldn't

tell, we REALLY enjoyed the food in Naples!! It was so much more affordable than what it cost in Rome! Unfortunately, Naples wasn't really much to look at besides Mt. Vesuvius and the ruins. It's sad that the streets and their beaches are filled with trash. It was great to spend some time with friends though!!

We took the train the next day back to Rome and spent the day seeing the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, Palatine and Roman Forum. We took the train from the Trevi Fountain to the Colosseum. We figured that we would just follow signs to get to the Colosseum and we would find it eventually. When we came out of the train station and up the stairs, we were amazed as we stared at the Colosseum right in front of us! It was amazing to see. Unfortunately, Brayden slept most of the way through it, but woke up towards the end so we could at least get pictures to prove that he was there! :)

It was such a great trip and it's so amazing that we can see the things that we can after a short 2 hour flight. We feel very fortunate that we have the opportunities that we do right now and we are taking full advantage of living in this part of the world. I am also thankful that I have a wonderful husband that didn't object one bit when I told him that I was booked a trip to Italy, too! :)

Rome/Naples October 7-11, 2011

Lucy is home!

With the help of Jeff's parents (THANK YOU!), we got our little girl back! We kept Lucy with them throughout the move until we got settled because we knew that she'd be happy there and we didn't want to just drag her around. Since we just got settled in on-base housing, we figured it was a good time to send her over. Lucy had a flight out of Cleveland which was delayed, so we decided to have her stay the night in the kennel in JFK airport so that she could have a break then travel to Frankfurt the next night. When we woke up the next morning, Jeff checked the tracking information for her and found out that she never left JFK! We were told that no one from Delta went to the kennel to pick her up to put her onto the flight. We were so upset that she hadn't made the flight and we would have to wait until the next morning for her to arrive. Later than day, we checked the tracking information and it said that she had checked into Frankfurt!! I called the cargo area at Frankfurt and found out that she had indeed made her flight but her tracking information had never been updated! Huge headache and BIG complaint filed with Delta, but the important thing is that Lucy made it safe and sound and she hasn't skipped a beat! The night that she got here, she was ready to play frisbee and acted completely normal. It's so great to have our little girl back and we're happy to have a yard for her to play in!

Brayden's 2nd Birthday!

It's so hard to believe that time really goes by so quickly! We celebrated with cake and ice cream on Sunday where we gave him a new bike. Our neighbors came over to enjoy the Thomas the Train cake with us! Today we celebrated his actual birthday with lunch out, a trip to the park, a visit to Daddy at work, more cake and ice cream and presents from family. We were able to have Brayden's Great-Gramma Thelma and Great-Grampa George watch Brayden open their gifts over Skype. I was able to catch the rest of the gifts that he opened on video! I think that he had a great day for a 2 year old! :) Happy 2nd Birthday, Brayden!

Schwarzwald (The Black Forest)

Yesterday, we took our first USO tour to The Black Forest (Schwarzwald). We had to board a bus at about 6:30 a.m. which was no fun at all, but it was great to have a guided tour since we hadn't been there before. The trip was about 3 1/2 hours by bus and we started in Niederwasser at a Cuckoo clock shop, which is one of the things that the Black Forest is known for (along with Black Forest cake!). We actually learned that it's believed that a mechanical clock was brought to the Black Forest from Bohemia around 1640 and the gears and workings were copied with wood. Within 20 years, the first clock workshop was opened and the first cuckoo clock was made around 1730. The owner of the shop is very nice to all of the people that come on tours and greeted everyone with little cups of wine. We ended up buying a cuckoo clock and Brayden loved playing outside near the giant one!

After cuckoo clock shopping we traveled to Triberg, the home of Germany's highest waterfall. It was beautiful and the view from the top was awesome! We didn't go all the way up to the last part because it costs an extra 5 Euro a person to get up there and the view was great from where we were anyways. We had lunch outside at a place called Cafe Lille where I had Black Forest Ham and Jeff had pork and noodles. Everything was delicious! Brayden ended up taking a nap in his stroller so we walked around to a couple of shops then sat down for a bit to rest before we had to get back on the bus for part 3 of the trip.

We traveled to Vogtsbauernhof Museum which is the open air museum (Freilichtmuseum) with houses that show you what life was like for people in the area. Houses in the Black Forest were both house and barn all in one. It was interesting that only rich farmers back then could afford balconies and windows on the front of the house. They were impractical for everyone else because they had to try to keep their large houses warm in the winter. There were horses, cows, ducks and goats there which Brayden loved! We went right up to the horses and fed them hay and Brayden pet them on the nose. There was also a great play area for kids with places to climb. Brayden called the sand "snow" but he had a blast. They had a rock structure that they had smoothed out a portion of it to create a slide. He loved it! Here's Brayden and Jeff on the top of it before Brayden slid down!

All in all it was a great trip, but we were exhausted by the end of it!

Busy week!

Earlier this week, Brayden and I took a trip with the MOMS Club of Kaiserslautern to the Neurkircher Zoo. He really liked watching the monkeys and meerkats! We saw porcupines, seals, bears, zebras and elephants. I must say that I've never seen porcupines so close up like that and they were HUGE! One of the bears came right up to the fence to greet us, too. He looked so friendly, but I still wouldn't touch him! :) Brayden also got to be up close and personal with a pony that stuck his head out of the fence. I got a workout pushing the stroller up and down all of the hills in the zoo! We had a great time!

Today, we went to Burg Lichtenberg in Kusel. It was about a 40 minute drive from our house. It's actually the largest castle ruin in Germany. It was built in 1200 and was never conquered or destroyed by assaults. It was severely damaged in 1799 by a large fire and it was declared a national monument in 1895. It was wide open for Brayden to run around and climb! It also had an amazing view!

When we left the castle, we headed to lunch at a place that I had heard about called "The Big Emma". I knew that their portions were big, but never imagined that our 1/2 sized portions would be this big! Delicious food and we definitely have enough to eat for the next 2 days! Jeff got a schnitzel sandwich and I got sausages, sauerkraut and salad. Brayden had schnitzel and french fries.

My sweet boy...

As I caught Brayden drawing with a permanent, red marker today, I immediately jumped up and ran towards him. I told him "no" and asked him to hand it back to me. He kept drawing then looked up at me, stuck out his hand to push me away and said "back, back, back". I moved close to him again and he pushed me away again. What happened to this sweet boy?! :)

Don't think that I didn't win the marker fight though ;)

Gartenschau!

Today we FINALLY escaped the rainy weather that we've been having to go to Gartenschau, otherwise known as the "Dino Park"! It's a beautiful garden in Kaiserslautern that also has models of dinosaurs throughout. They have play equipment and huge slides for older kids.

We walked through the garden and Brayden enjoyed running and climbing. He mainly said "roar" the whole time at the dinosaurs! He wasn't scared of the dinosaurs, but he was definitely less intimidated when I asked him to pet the small ones. He kept staring up at the big ones and wasn't quite sure what to think. We shared a Nutella crepe and bought him some toy dinosaurs. Such a fun day!